| Metadata | |
|---|---|
| Object ID | OB03062 |
| Title | Poḷonnaruva Niśśaṅka-Dāna-Vinoda-Maṇḍapa Pillar Fragment |
| Subtitle | |
| Inscription(s) | IN03082 |
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| Responsibility | |
| Author | Don Martino de Zilva Wickremasinghe |
| Metadata recorded by | |
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| Description | |
| Material | Stone / unspecified |
| Object Type | Pillar |
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| Details | Dimensions not reported. A stone fragment, comprising the upper portion of a pillar and engraved on two sides with an inscription. The inscription consists of six lines on each side of the pillar, covering a smoothed and ruled surface of 15 inches (38.1 cm) square. |
| History | |
| Created: | |
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| Other ancient history | |
| Found: | |
| Date | 1885-6 |
| Place | Polonnaruwa |
| Other modern history | |
| Latest: | |
| Date | |
| Place | Archaeological Commissioner’s Office, Tōpa-väva |
| Authority | Wickremasinghe, Don Martino de Zilva. (1912-27). ‘No. 18. Poḷonnaruva: Niśśaṅka-Dāna-Vinoda-Maṇḍapa Inscription,’ Epigraphia Zeylanica 2, pp. 123-125. |
| Details | Discovered by S. M. Burrows in 1885-6 in a ruined building, with massive pillars, abutting on the bund of Tōpa-väva tank to the west of the road from Minnēriya, as shown on inset A of the plans of the Poḷonnaruva ruins given in the Archaeological Commissioner’s Annual Reports and reprinted in Epigraphia Zeylanica 2 (1912-27): 84-85. Based on the content of the inscription, Burrows identified this building as the Niśśaṅka-dāna-vinpoda-maṇḍapa (‘the pavilion for the past-time of Niśśaṅka-almsgiving’). This identification was confirmed in 1902 by H. C. P. Bell, whose excavations revealed that the building originally stood at the centre of quadrangular terraced platforms and had therefore been well suited for witnessing the distribution of alms. The pillar fragment was seen by Wickremasinghe in Archaeological Commissioner’s Office at Tōpaväva in Poḷonnaruva sometime before 1927. |
| Notes | |